\n\tThe Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM) should grow beyond its four days in Busan into a platform that runs all year, director Ellen Y.D. Kim tells Variety. She adds that public money for the market has not grown alongside it.<\/p>\n
\n\tKim calls the idea ACFM 365. It would be a permanent database and matchmaking service that joins the market data in The A Report with the matching work now done by the Asian Project Market (APM) and the Busan Story Market.<\/p>\n
\n\tHer five-year targets include regular publication of The A Report and a standing leaders\u2019 forum built on The A Summit. She also wants Cinema by Brand to become a financing model of its own and the Asian Cinema Fund to partner with international funds. More delegates from Latin America, the Arab world and Africa could lift the number of countries represented past 60, and possibly above 70.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe biggest obstacle is funding,\u201d Kim says. \u201cThe scale and the role of the market have grown quickly, but public support has not kept pace. National funding for ACFM has stayed at the same level for two years running. The film industry is small in scale, but it is the front-runner that opens the way for other industries. Supporting film is an investment, not a subsidy, and a market needs to be understood as industry infrastructure, not as an event.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tACFM is in its 21st edition this year. Last year, industry registration rose 14.4% and overall attendance rose 13.5%. This year there are 339 exhibiting companies and institutions from 32 countries and territories, 17% more than last year. Tech exhibitors went from seven to 18, and national agencies and film commissions from 62 to 79. Thailand, the market\u2019s first Country of Honor, has 28 exhibitors. Japan, the ProducerHub Focus Country, has 46.<\/p>\n
\n\tKim credits curation for the growth. The market kept its core strands and added ProducerHub, InnoAsia, Doc Square and The A, and these drew people who had never attended a market before. This year\u2019s additions include an Investor Summit, microdrama sessions and Cinema by Brand, which pairs film productions with brand partners.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe core is cinema,\u201d Kim says. \u201cThe Sales Market, APM and the Asian Cinema Fund are the backbone of ACFM, and that structure will not change.\u201d She applies one test to any new program: whether it widens the opportunities for cinema.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cVisibility and revenue are different things,\u201d Kim says. \u201cFor much of the Asian content that has succeeded globally, most of the IP and the revenue belong to global platforms or studios.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn her view, producers need to keep their IP and trade it directly. The Busan Story Market is built for that, and ProducerHub has become a place where producers from across the region discuss creators\u2019 rights and recoupment.<\/p>\n
\n\tKorea\u2019s numbers look healthy at first glance. First-half box office rose 42% on last year, admissions rose 34%, and Korean films took 64% of revenue. But there were 22 fewer Korean releases, and Korean commercial films averaged a return of minus 33% in 2025.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cProducers say they cannot find money; investors say there are no projects to invest in,\u201d Kim says. \u201cI see this as a rebound, not yet a structural recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs a result, Korean producers now plan international pre-sales and co-productions from the development stage. The Asian Producers Alliance, led by the Producers Guild of Korea (PGK) and the Association of Indonesian Film Producers (APROFI), will announce its launch at ProducerHub.<\/p>\n
\n\tNew money is also arriving from outside film. Kim points to a conglomerate in India, broadcaster joint ventures in Thailand, mining companies in Mongolia and a beverage brand in China, all of which are backing films. In Taiwan, telecom and media companies have formed joint funds with a public agency. Public money remains the base, through Korea\u2019s Fund of Funds film account, Malaysia\u2019s production rebate and funds in Singapore and Taiwan. But Kim notes that it shifts when policy does.<\/p>\n
\n\tStreamers are moving from licensing rights to co-financing production, according to country reports in The A Report. In the Philippines, only 32 of 88 first-half releases played in cinemas. In Korea, an industry agreement on holdback windows that was targeted for August did not happen.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne year after InnoAsia\u2019s launch, Mateo AI Studio has raised KRW2 billion ($1.5 million) in pre-Series A funding. The AI feature \u201cSteelay\u201d will be previewed at this year\u2019s Work-in-Progress Showcase and opens in Korean cinemas on Oct. 20. This year\u2019s theme is \u201cCinema Coevolves with Tech.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat concerns me is that institutions and people are not keeping up with the speed of the technology,\u201d Kim says. She also worries that junior crew could lose their training ground if their jobs are automated first. \u201cAnd if Asia does not own the models trained on Asian languages and images, the IP problem we lived through in the platform era will repeat itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tKim produced \u201cCry Woman\u201d and \u201cHanaan.\u201d She tried to co-produce \u201cHanaan\u201d internationally, but it ended up a solely Korean production shot in Uzbekistan. Today she sees co-productions forming between Asian countries, including a three-way project from Thailand\u2019s M Studio, Japan\u2019s Toei and Korea\u2019s Showbox, and the first financial co-production between Korea and Mongolia. Treaties between Asian countries are still rare.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cCo-production used to be an option; now it is an essential strategy for sharing risk,\u201d Kim says.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Asian Cinema Fund\u2019s Co-Production Support Fund chose three projects this year, including the new film from Fukada Koji. This year 10 Japanese producers will also pitch projects, including co-productions with Korea, Canada, Indonesia and France.<\/p>\n